High River Town Council has passed a $29,698,500 budget for 2017.

Town Manager Tom Maier says that equates to a 1.1 percent increase over-all, including the education levy, but it's down from where council started deliberations

"We started off with a 2.6 per cent tax increase, and that primarily was made up of .6 per cent inflation, just to make sure that we keep up with inflation, costs keep on going up even though we're in an economic downturn, and then 2 per cent for our infrastructure levy, so that 2 per cent that we're starting put away into reserves for future replacement of our infrastructure," Maier says.

He says council wanted to come in a little lower and recognized the issues facing many Albertans and decided to implement a wage freeze for 2017 for Town staff which Maier says saved about $275,000.

Maier says the 1.1 per cent increase will actually reflect a jump of 0.8 per cent on the residential side and close to 2 per cent on the commercial side.

Two to three positions at the Town that became vacant will not be filled.

The Town's looking at paying $80,000 more for insurance, taking the bill up to $500,000, and $50,000 for new radios for the RCMP and Maier says the carbon tax is another issue the Town has to deal with.

"We've estimated it to be about a $30,000 dollar impact to the Town and that equates to about a .2 per cent tax increase so that's something that we had to take the burden on," he says. "Once it's fully implemented in 2018 it'll be closer to a $50,000 increase which will be closer to a .3 or .4 per cent tax increase that we're going to have to factor in."

He says $60,000 is being set aside for the broadband study for the town core, and one full time employee and one seasonal employee will be hired for parks because the Town is taking on more park land with Wallaceville, Rio Vista, Beachwood and the floral displays downtown that need to be tended to.

The Town will contract out Municipal Enforcement to the Foothills MD at a cost of $48,000.